The Cacophony That Is the Duty of Love
by sillyfluffychild
Summary: "It was never supposed to go this far...Somewhere along the way everything changed and a line— a most sacred line— was crossed." Lord Melbourne's view that day at Brockett Hall and all that ensues (I'm terrible at summaries).
1. A rook

Hi Everyone! I didn't realize until today that when I had previously posted this the formatting got messed up so here it is again, hopefully in a much more readable format. I haven't decided if there will be more than just this chapter or not as I have ideas but am not sure how well this has turned out. Let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks!

It was never supposed to go this far. I initially had planned simply to charm her; to have her reveal herself to me enough and ingratiate myself into her affections just enough that I might be able to secure my own position as well as some wins for the party. It was supposed to be a passing investment of charm, a means to an end. But I could not keep myself from wanting desperately to guide her and protect her no matter what it meant for myself. This slight woman, delicate yet formidable all at once, innocent yet wise, demanded more from me and I have been helpless to refuse her. Somewhere along the way everything changed and a line— a most sacred line— was crossed. Whether by her or by myself I am still unsure, but it happened nonetheless.

Was it when I told her of my son? Could it have been when she asked why I had not married? Or was it when she first refused my offer to be her Private Secretary and summarily dismissed me with the fire and determination I would come to treasure so? Could it have been that first time she called me 'Lord M' and I could feel myself brighten at the name? Perhaps it was when she refused to have a government form to force both the Tories' hand and mine so that I might return as her Prime Minister. It might have very well been that first day when I ascended the steps of Kensington and met a black-clad girl-woman so that I might bend my knee and kiss hands. And then when she told me of Doll 123 and my heart immediately lept out to the woman who in childhood had only thought to give her dolls numbers instead of names.

I doubt I will ever truly know but it's immaterial as the truth tends to be in times such as this. It is especially so as I sit at my ancestral home watching the birds I love so much and wondering how I will survive this flirtation that became too much now that I must admit its numbered days. Never had I planned to be Prime Minister for long and before the Queen's ascension I had hoped for its expedient conclusion. Now I can vividly predict the pain that will accompany the inevitable end to my tutelage of the Queen as I received a taste of it once already. I do not relish it.

The crunch of autumn earth alerts me to another's presence. When I turn I see that it's her in all her beauty and life and promise and naivete.

She shouldn't be here. I am obviously a very lacking teacher having neglected to dissuade such inpulsivity.

But she's magnetic and of course I am merely a man who cannot help but be drawn to her. I make a jest about not knowing it was her that causes me to chuckle even as I say it since I would always know her anywhere. She is unmistakeable, though she does not know it. Entirely unconscious of her effect on those around her, she joins me in laughing at my comment with the reckless abandon that is youth.

"I think perhaps now I am speaking as a woman and not as a Queen."

How I can ever empathize with that distinction as I battle almost every minute between the man and the Prime Minister, the besotted man and the practical politician. I can feel that war rage on as I hear her name me as the only companion she could want. The usual war siege transforms from a typical struggle for domination into what could be a fight to the death as I reach out to take her hand between both of mine.

Her kid glove is of such soft leather that it soothes my brutish, rough hands from their usual calloused state as I stroke it. Momentarily I wish I could be the Knight we both want me to be so that she might grant me the favor of her glove. I would tuck it in my breast pocket where it might remain nearest my heart, peeking ever so slightly from my jacket as I engage in whatever duel awaits me. The glorious part is that my Queen would likewise fight so valiantly in her own way and at the end of the day we would return to each other weary but triumphant because we are buoyed by our love.

But I am no Knight, though she is absolutely my most brave Queen.

And thus I must battle anyway without her favor as is both my duty and privilege.

"Did you know that rooks mate for life?"

I fall back on the parts of my memory so ingrained and vivid that I can recite them as I try desperately to stifle the confessions of love that want to fly from my mouth so that they might spread about us and inhabit the trees. I tell her of my failure as a husband in hopes that she will understand the terrible folly that would be any want of me.

When she tells me she'd never forsake me I have to laugh inwardly at the endearing sincerity and most obvious truth to it. No, my Queen would always stand by me and I know it. We both do. She tells me that she has already given her heart to me and this simultaneously fills me with joy and dread.

And as much as I wish I could shout my love, I instead do what is necessary:

I focus on breaking both our hearts.

"You must keep it intact for someone else."

Because you should not love a broken man like me. You deserve so much beyond this.

"I have no use for it."

I will only trap you and keep you from the radiantly beautiful life you could have with another.

I swallow the emotion that keeps insistently clawing at my throat, its talons desperate for purchase so that it might escape.

"For you see, I am like a rook: I mate for life."

I hate to raise the specter of my dead wife but it is necessary. I know how she will interpret it; with years in politics it is not a regular occurrence that anyone gains an understanding or meaning other than exactly what I plan. It is, after all, part of my reputation. Right now I need her to think me the broken, lovesick, old man who pines for his dead wife.

Of course I am a broken, lovesick, old man, but for entirely different reasons. I am like a rook: I have mated for life and it's been to a short, innocent, eighteen year old monarch who insists on monopolizing my time and bringing light and laughter back into my life when I thought I had been forever banished to the dark. But I cannot let her know that; it is best that she not realize the inner turmoil she brings with her.

I know I could not share her with another. Of course I always share her with the State-she is the Queen after all- though even that I only do reluctantly, instead wishing to whisk her away to some far off place where I could jealously guard her time and attention for exclusively my own. But eventually she will need to marry and if she gives her heart to this broken old man, it will mean she will embark on a loveless marriage that she will endure to satisfy the pressures of her advisors and position. I would have to sit by and watch her on her husband's arm and while I would perhaps have her to myself selectively in private, it would never be as I wish and it would kill me every single day. My mind would torture me with imagining their indulgence in the more carnal aspects of marriage. And if the man were ever unkind to her it would take all of my self-restraint to keep from annihilating him immediately. But how would a Viscount possibly counter a man who is a Prince, or Duke, or King in his own right?

If I do not have to suffer through her marrying another, then she might ask me to remain as her private Secretary and, ultimately, more. Again, I could never be hers publicly; it would always be in the privacy of closed doors and even then it would not be as I wish or as I believe she wishes. We could never belong to each other completely, even by ourselves, for to do so would be to invite terrible scandal upon the crown and, more importantly, the woman I love most desperately. She would never truly be happy though she does not see that at present. This would bring upon me the most acute guilt and self-hatred that I would have robbed her of such an opportunity to have the happiness she truly deserves.

No, I cannot stand to deprive her of a match that could be all she desires and deserves. I cannot bring such a terrible fate to my beautiful Queen.

Even if it means that I must break her heart in order to save her from it.

So for that reason I force my feet to remain rooted where they are as I watch her walk away from me. I strangle my voice to silence in my chest. I push my flapping emotion further down so it cannot fly free. I chastise my fingers to still from their incessant itching to reach out for her. I am loud and silent at once so that I only marginally hear her sniffed tears as her back recedes into the landscape. I must let her go because just as I know I am like a rook, I am certain she is too.

And she cannot be mated to me.


	2. A boy

**Hi everyone!**

 **I decided to add to this little experiment. Hope you enjoy it! Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.**

I was a covetous boy. My mother oft told me. There was not a time when I would realize the connection between those I loved and another and not feel the cold sting of betrayal. If only I knew then that those moments were infants in comparison to what true betrayal of love would feel like. That understanding would come later without warning and nearly destroy me.

She is not mine to want. She never was.

But my mind, even knowing this all along, could not stand watching her face drop before she turned from me at Brockett Hall. It could not fathom her thinking that I don't desire her, love her, cherish her, far beyond what would ever be appropriate as her Prime Minister. Perhaps it was actually my heart overruling my mind in it all, driven to madness at the sound of her sniffling as she walked from me.

So I sent the orchids to her and found my delight at their appearance on her costume that night. And I not only danced with her but spoke of Elizabeth and Leicester despite how terribly ill-thought out and impetuous it was of me.

And each time she looks at me or smiles or brushes her hand against mine I can feel the covetous child within me reaching for her, grasping her with first one and then both hands to keep her with me. She would let me keep her, too; she would allow me to spirit her away solely to myself but I cannot allow either of us that reality. How I wish I could.

When she tells me while painting another image of Elizabeth that she has decided to rule alone with the possibility of companions, I know the covetous boy must be stopped. Just because I had refrained from fully keeping her solely to myself does not mean I have successfully allowed her to be free. But she must be.

So I do my duty: I ask about her Coburg cousins and relate their fast approaching arrival. She looks displeased but I know it's truly at her Uncle's disregard for tradition and her position as Queen. Her wariness is warranted; he would run her as Sir John would have if she allowed it. Her hurt pride, however, needs to be smoothed.

"I will not be your Prime Minister forever."

And when I am not there will be no real use of me; no excuse for me to be near.

She resists hearing it of course; she would not be my stubborn and clever Queen if she did not resist. She wishes to hear my words no more than I wish to say them. But while I will not be her Prime Minister forever, I still am right now thus it is my duty to continue, despite either of our objections.

"Let the Coburgs come; perhaps Prince Albert will surprise you."

Of course she does not invite change from this bubble created these past years. I do not either.

"I do not want things to change."

My heart screams out for her, the boy grasping again that he might keep her for himself but it will not do.

"I know, Ma'am, but I do not believe you will be happy alone; even with companions."

 _I will not be enough for your enduring happiness._

"You need a husband to love you, honor you, cherish you."

 _And as much as I wish it to be different, that man cannot be me._

"There is no one I care for."

 _Because I have been here, selfishly keeping you from that._

"I do not think you have really looked."

I know she's been told too many times that she needs a husband to advise her, that she needs a man who can lay a steadying hand to control her. They mean for her to be the puppet of another as they believe her to be right now because they cannot imagine her possibly capable of fulfilling the responsibilities of her role alone. They underestimate her dearly.

No, she does not need a husband to advise her; she needs a husband solely to fulfill the true, eternal responsibilities demanded by love. Those responsibilities that too few of us prioritize and do finally satisfy. The most sacred vows that I, myself, failed to uphold in my own marriage and to which I would spend the rest of my life devoting all of myself if my inclinations could be realized. But they cannot; they must not.

"I was so happy before."

Emma is proved correct at the end of it all: my attachment to the young Queen will never do. I could not before stand to let her believe I do not love her, though that would have been much cleaner for us both, but I also cannot be the reason she forfeits the joys of life she still has not yet known.

I had my chance once and I squandered it. If I were decades younger it might be different; we might run away together if need be and I would allow it in the youthful selfishness that is so common at that age. But I know better now. Everything I touch turns to ash and I cannot burn her.

At first I liked to think she would not let me wreck havoc in such ways but that day, with spent leaves and fallen feathers as our only witnesses, her eyes had shone such that I knew she would gladly allow it all to smolder if I asked. That is simply too much power for one man.

It is too much temptation.

Her love is the sun whose face I cannot resist touching though I know its scorching touch will ruin me. I know she too cannot resist it. In that happy moment that lies between want and ruin we would both revel in contentment, heedless of the inevitable outcome but what does one do with the ashes from such a venture? I do not wish for her to have to find out, for I already know I cannot in good conscience let her make such a destructive decision; not when my time has already been spent. She deserves more.

I have not done many things right in my life but I can do this: I can watch her walk away into the dawning light that will be her beautiful life.

"…you were happy?"

How could she ever doubt my happiness with her? As she looks at me with such sincere vulnerability and naivety I am reminded of her youth, of the nervous eighteen-year-old at Kensington. I despise Sir John and the Duchess both for the pain they have inflicted upon her that would cause her to doubt another's ability to feel happiness and joy at her presence. And for what? The promise of power. At least this remarkable woman has seen to it that they will not realize that which they pursued at such a dear cost.

But my anger at their callousness does not matter now; only reassuring her of my devotion and the incredible light she's brought to my life matters.

"You know I was."

The anxiety that had pinched her face finally eases, disappearing from her eyes. Quickly I see the mask of determined confidence fall into place again and she returns to the regal affect that has lent her to challenging Robert Peel and Wellington as well as anyone else who stands against her. My Queen will not be found faltering now.

"Well, I won't marry just to please you."

Oh, if only she knew what a marriage pleasing me would be. If only I could tell her truly I would convince her to sacrifice or otherwise compromise her reign easily so that I might have what I desire most. And I am constantly on the brink of doing so. But I know the difference between duty and inclination.

So I laugh.

"No, you must please yourself."

That, my Queen, means you must marry someone other than this covetous boy.


End file.
